The present invention is related to an improved cable lock structure in which the length of the cable is adjustable for snugly locking an article without random arrangement of the cable.
Taiwanese Patent Publication Nos. 370147 and 424840 disclose a lock in which two locking bolts can be expanded to lock in a hole or a cavity formed on a fixed article. Taiwanese Patent Publication Nos. 413259 and 435561 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,989 disclose a lock having two relatively movable locking plates. The locking plates can be expanded and locked in the holes of an article to be locked. Taiwanese Patent Publication No. 435725 discloses a lock in which a latch block is formed at rear end of the lock housing. The latch block axially projects from the housing and is formed with a slide channel. The latch block serves to abut against a flange of the wall face of a computer housing. The lock further includes a push pin having a restoring spring. The push pin is retractable/extensible in the slide channel of the latch block. When the lock is inserted into the hole, the push pin is moved out and the latch block is forcedly biased by a certain angle to lock in the hole. U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,989 discloses a lock in which the lock bolt is pivotally rotatable. One end of the lock bolt has an elongated transversely extending stop bar for extending into a slot of an article to be locked. The lock bolt can be rotated to forcedly rotate the stop bar by a certain angle. Accordingly, the stop bar and the slot intersect each other to achieve a locking effect.
Taiwanese Patent No. 88215819, entitled “binding collar of steel cable lock ”, Taiwanese Patent No. 84205898, entitled “rotatably fixing structure of steel cable end” and Taiwanese Patent No. 81208568, entitled “easy latch steel cable lock ” disclose improvements of components of steel cable locks.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional steel cable lock has a fixed end A which is wound or fixed on a fixed article B such as a column or a desk leg. The other end of the cable is a head end C having a ring C1 which can pass through a ring member E of the fixed article D and locked with a lock F. A series of articles D such as computer mainframes can be locked at the same time to prevent the articles from being stolen. Basically, the cable C2 has a considerable length. After locking the article D, the article D can be still moved within a certain range and may be transferred or collided by other article. This is not desirable.
In addition, in practice, in order to meet different requirements, the cable C2 is often designed with longer length. As a result, excessive length of cable often remains to lead to problem of randomness. Furthermore, the conventional cable lock must be used in cooperation with the ring member E of the article. In some cases, the article may lack the ring member. For example, the cable lock can be hardly applied to a computer monitor without any ring member. Therefore, the application range of the conventional cable lock is limited.